Cambridge , Massachusetts -LRB- CNN -RRB- -- When trouble strikes in our personal lives and we are searching for a source , it usually makes sense to take a look in a familiar place -- the mirror . And so it should be in our troubled politics today .

Many of us are deeply angry at politicians in Washington and the broken government they have created . We tend to look down upon them as jackasses and ideologues who are incapable of organizing a two-car funeral . We blame special interests for capturing them , a 24/7 media for encouraging them , and power for corrupting them . Indeed , a list of reasons for broken government could -- and will -- fill a week of columns .

But perhaps we give too little attention to the basic notion that our politicians are also a reflection of the public they represent . As the old saying goes , we get the president we deserve -- and usually the Congress , too . In truth , our fractured politics are due in no small part to a fractured country -- one in which consensus and moderation are disappearing . With apologies to President Truman : the buck stops here .

Those of us who are older -- born somewhere close to midcentury -- grew up in an America where there was a general consensus that the United States was a great nation , that you could be a success if you worked hard and played by the rules , that government had a positive role to play when trouble hit , and that politics must stop at the water 's edge as we united against dangerous enemies . But with Vietnam , the tumult of the '60s and '70s , Watergate and more , our sense of common purpose began collapsing .

Listen for a moment to three of the smartest observers in the country who have weighed in this week on the collapse . In this week 's New York Magazine , columnist Frank Rich argues that by the late 1960s , `` the bipartisan national consensus over the central role of government -- which had held firm through the Roosevelt , Truman , Eisenhower , Kennedy and Johnson administrations -- was kaput . The Reagan revolution was in the wings . ''

We also began to lose faith in ourselves and our values . In an interview with the Financial Times early this week , Professor Michael Porter of the Harvard Business School chimed in with pained observations about what is happening to American competitiveness : `` This is shocking for the U.S. . If you go back 100 years , you find that the U.S. was a huge pioneer in public education . ... The U.S. was a real pioneer in creating a national , very deep university system . ... The U.S. was a pioneer in the interstate highway system . ... We stepped to the plate in the past and made very , very bold investments in the fundamental environment for competitiveness . But right now , we ca n't seem to agree on any of these things . ''

Or listen to William Galston , who was instrumental in helping President Clinton bridge the divides in politics . In the New Republic , he argues that the middle is shrinking in politics . In 1992 , he points out , Gallup found that 43 % of respondents identified themselves as moderates , 37 % as conservatives , and 17 % as liberals . In 2009 , conservatives and liberals were each up 4 % and moderates were down by 7 % .

Similarly , a study of national election data by Alan Abramovitz found that in 1984 , some 41 % identified themselves at the midpoint of an ideological scale versus 10 % who placed themselves at liberal or conservative extremes . By 2005 , the number who identified themselves at the center had dropped to only 28 % , while the number at the endpoints had risen to 23 % .

We continue to hear that even so , independents have the whip hand in electoral politics and we tend to assume that they are middling in their views , open to argument , and rather homogeneous . But even these assumptions seem doubtful . Frank Rich , for example , highlights a recent Pew survey that suggests that nearly half of independents are actually Democrats -LRB- 21 % -RRB- or Republicans -LRB- 26 % -RRB- who just shy away from the label , while another 20 % are more populist , skeptical Democrats -LRB- `` Doubting Dems '' -RRB- , 16 % are `` disaffected '' voters with a highly negative view of government , and 17 % are `` disengaged '' altogether . Not exactly a portrait of moderate unity .

Surely there are many sources of the fractures in today 's electorate , just as there are many social scientists more qualified to take a crack at explaining them . But one potential contributing factor comes from a fascinating piece in National Affairs by Marc Dunkelman , who fears the winnowing out of so-called `` middle-tier relationships '' for the American citizen .

These relationships have long been , as Dunkelman puts it , `` at the root of American community life , '' and encompass such different-minded acquaintances as `` bridge partners , brothers in the Elks club , fellow members of the PTA . '' But these connections have withered in recent years , even as we stay close to those like-minded folks who inhabit our inner circles of friends and family , and are connected on an unprecedented scale by technology and social media to those farther away . Without these vibrant , heterogeneous `` middle-tier '' relationships , Dunkelman argues , it may simply be much harder to build the sense of public trust and unity that allows people to stand up to big challenges together .

The good news is that , as with any self-inflicted wound , the power is in our hands to change course . And indeed there is a growing sense in the country that people are finally getting tired of this particularly rancid level of divisiveness . There is a generation rising -- singled out in a recent TIME Magazine cover story as `` The Next Greatest Generation '' -- that , led by its young military veterans , is eager to put aside partisan squabbles to get things done .

The bipartisan group No Labels recently convened a conference call with Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz that they reported drew more than 100,000 participants . And even in Washington itself , Lamar Alexander , a senior Republican senator , recently quit his leadership post so he could devote more time to forging consensus and working across the aisle .

So there is cause for hope . In the meantime , it is up to us to continue to hold those in the halls of power accountable for results and not just party orthodoxy , and to expose ourselves to people outside our handpicked inner sanctums , ideas and opinions outside our own ideologies , and even news sources different from our favorites -LRB- unless you 're a regular CNN viewer , of course -RRB- .

Politics in this country has always been rough-and-tumble , and so it should be . But as no less a patriot than former Secretary Bob Gates reminded us last Thursday while accepting the Liberty Medal at the National Constitution Center , `` The warning given a long time ago by Benjamin Franklin still applies : ` Either we hang together or we will surely all hang separately . '' That advice likewise applies as much to our representatives in government as it does to those to whom the founders truly entrusted the reins of power -- us .

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the authors .

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Authors : Americans bear responsibility for broken government

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Studies show that the moderate center is being hollowed out , they say

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Ties that bound communities together are eroding , authors say

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Gergen , Zuckerman : There 's hope that a new generation could reverse the trend